The Autumn Republic (2 page)

T
he Holy Warriors of Labor, the biggest workers’ union in all the Nine, kept their headquarters inside an old warehouse in the
F
actory
D
istrict of Adopest not far from where the Ad River spilled out into the Adsea.

Tamas watched the building with some trepidation. There were hundreds of people coming and going. It would be almost impossible to get in to speak with Ricard without being seen – and probably recognized – by someone. The coming conversation could very well become bloody, and Tamas didn’t want to have it where Ricard’s guards were within screaming distance.

If not for the urgent pressure of his heart pounding in his chest, Tamas would have waited until nightfall and followed Ricard home.

“We could make an appointment, sir,” Olem suggested, leaning casually against the stoop. Across the street, one of the union guards was watching them with a frown. Olem waved to the man and held up a spare cigarette. The union guard cocked an eyebrow and then turned away, his interest gone.

“I’m not making an appointment,” Tamas said flatly. “I don’t want him to know we’re coming.”

“I think he’s going to know one way or another. He’s got more than twenty armed men on this street alone.”

“I only counted eighteen.”

Olem watched the foot traffic pass them with a feigned air of indifference. “Marksmen in the window above the shop thirty paces to your left, sir.”

“Ah.” Tamas saw them now out of the corner of his eye. “Something has Ricard spooked. The old headquarters had no more than four guards at any time.”

“Could be he’s worried about the Brudanians?”

“Or that I’ll return. There’s Vlora. Let’s go.”

They worked their way down the street, doing their best to avoid the attention of the union guards, and joined Vlora in the doorway of a small bakery. Tamas looked over the loaves stacked on the counter and wondered where Mihali had ended up. Was he still down south, with the main army?

Of course he was. If Mihali wasn’t holding Kresimir at bay, then Adopest would have been leveled by now. Tamas felt himself wishing for a bowl of the chef’s squash soup just about now.

Vlora led them through the bakery and out the back into a narrow alley filled with refuse and mud. “Down here,” she said over her shoulder as they picked their way down the alley. Tamas’s boots squelched as he walked and he tried to ignore the smell. The
F
actory
D
istrict was by far the dirtiest part of the city – and the alleys were always the worst.

They navigated three more alleys, then climbed an iron ladder over a two-story building before they found the back entrance to the union headquarters.

A pair of union guards sat with their backs to the wall beside the door, their heads bowed beneath their hats as if they were asleep. A brief glance at the mud told Tamas that a quick scuffle had taken place, but Vlora had taken the two men without trouble.

“Are they dead?” Olem asked, flicking his cigarette into the mud before drawing his pistol.

“Unconscious.”

“Good,” Tamas said. “Try not to kill anyone on the way in. We don’t know for sure whether Ricard has betrayed us.”
And if he has, I’ll do the killing
. Tamas set his hand to the door only to have Olem stop him.

“Pardon sir, but we’ll go first.”

“I can…”

“It’s my job, sir. You haven’t been letting me do it lately.”

Tamas bit his tongue. This was a terrible time for insubordination from his own bodyguard, but Olem had a point. “Go on.”

He didn’t have to wait for more than about three minutes before Olem returned for him. “Sir. We have him.”

They passed through the back hallways and two servants’ rooms before slipping in the side entrance to Ricard’s office. Ricard himself sat behind his desk, his jacket stained and his beard wild, his eyes narrowed in anger. Behind him, Vlora stood with the barrel of a pistol against the back of his head.

When he saw Olem, Ricard slammed both hands on his desk. “What is the meaning of this? What do you think…” His jaw dropped and he made to stand. Vlora put a hand on his shoulder to keep him in his seat. “Tamas? You’re alive?”

“You don’t sound too surprised,” Tamas said. He holstered his own pistol and nodded to Vlora to let go of Ricard’s shoulder. Olem took up a position beside the main office door.

Ricard swallowed hard, looking between Tamas and Olem. Tamas tried to decide if it was the nervousness of a man caught in betrayal or just the shock of his sudden presence. “I had heard you were still alive, but none of my sources were reliable. I —”

“What happened to my powder mage school? And where’s my boy?”

“Taniel?”

“Do I have another?”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“I… well, I don’t know where Taniel is.”

“You better explain quickly.” Tamas drummed his fingers on the ivory handle of one of his dueling pistols.

“Of course, of course! Can I offer you some wine?”

Tamas tilted his head slightly. Ricard seemed unaware that he was two wrong words away from a bullet cleaning out his skull. “Talk.”

“It’s a very long story.”

“Sum up.”

“Taniel woke up. Not long after you went south, the savage girl brought him back. The two of them went to the front line and Taniel helped to hold against the Kez but then was court-martialed on charges of insubordination. He was kicked out of the army and was hired by the Wings of Adom, but then killed five of General Ket’s soldiers in self-defense. He then disappeared.”

Tamas rocked back on his heels, head spinning. “That’s all happened in the last three months?”

Ricard nodded, glancing over his shoulder at Vlora.

“And you don’t know where he is now?”

“No.”

“And what happened to the school?”

Ricard frowned. “I haven’t heard from them for a few weeks. I assumed everything was fine.”

Tamas tried to read Ricard’s face. This was a man who had made his fortune by being likable – smoothing things over and getting people to work together. Despite this, he was a terrible liar. The fact that he didn’t seem to be lying now only deepened Tamas’s concern.

Olem’s startled shout was Tamas’s only warning. He whirled to see a woman kick Olem in the side of the knee, sending him to the ground with a curse. The woman leapt upon Tamas, a stiletto in one hand, moving with impossible speed. Tamas caught her by the wrist and swung her past him – or at least he tried. She stepped back suddenly, flicked the stiletto into the air, and caught it with her other hand, stabbing it at Tamas’s throat.

The knife missed by mere inches as Vlora slammed into the woman from one side, and they both hit Ricard’s bookshelf with enough force to bring the whole thing down on them. Olem, back on his feet, waded into the mess to grab the woman by her collar, only to receive a punch to his groin. He doubled over and fell back against the wall.

Tamas stepped up behind the woman, ready to shoot her to keep her down.

“Fell, stop!” Ricard bellowed.

The woman immediately stopped struggling.

Still with a pistol trained on the woman, Tamas pulled Vlora and then Olem to their feet. The woman lifted herself to a sitting position in the middle of the collapsed bookshelf and stared sullenly at the pistol in Tamas’s hand.

“Damn it, Fell,” Ricard said. “What the pit was that?”

“You were in danger, sir,” Fell said.

“Were you trying to kill the field marshal?”

Fell’s cheeks grew slightly red. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t recognize him from behind. And no, I was only trying to incapacitate them.”

“You swung a knife at my face!” Tamas said.

“It wouldn’t have gone deep. I am very precise.”

Tamas glanced between Vlora and Olem. Vlora had a darkening bruise on one cheek from the bookshelf and Olem cursed softly as he clutched at his groin. This woman had faced three armed strangers without fear, and she had only meant to incapacitate them? She had dropped Olem in a split second and nearly gotten the better of Tamas himself, even though he was burning a low powder trance.

“You’ve been hiring better people, I see,” Tamas said to Ricard.

Ricard returned to his desk chair and put his head in his hands. “You could have made an appointment, you know.”

“No, sir. He couldn’t,” Fell said from her spot on the floor. “He’s been out of contact for months. The city is in foreign hands. He wouldn’t know what to think.”

Ricard scowled at her for a moment, only for the scowl to slide away, a look of realization replacing it. “Oh. You think I sold the city out to the Brudanians, don’t you?”

“I know,” Tamas said, “that a foreign army holds my city and that I left you, the Proprietor, and Ondraus with the keys to the city gates.”

“It’s bloody Lord Claremonte.”

It was Tamas’s turn to scowl. “Lord Vetas’s master? Adamat didn’t root out that mongrel?”

“Adamat did an admirable job,” Ricard said. “Lord Vetas is dead and his men dead or scattered. We broke him only for his master to arrive with two brigades of Brudanian soldiers and half the Brudanian Royal Cabal.”

“No one defended the city?”

Ricard’s nostrils flared. “We tried. But… Claremonte didn’t come to conquer. Or so he says. He claims his army is only here to help defend us from the Kez. He’s running for the office of First Minister of Adro.”

“Like pit he is.” Tamas began to pace. This army in control of Adopest posed too many questions. If Tamas was going to find out answers, he’d have to do it backed by an army of his own. The Seventh and the Ninth, along with his Deliv allies, were still weeks away.

“Get me a meeting with Claremonte,” Tamas said.

“That might not be the best idea.”

“Why not?”

“He has half the Brudanian Royal Cabal behind him!” Ricard said. “Can you think of any group that hates you more than the royal cabals of the Nine? They’ll kill you outright and dump your body in the Ad.”

Tamas continued to pace. He didn’t have the time for this. So many enemies. So many facets to consider. He needed allies badly. “What news from the front?”

“They’re still holding, but…”

“But what?”

“I haven’t had any good information from the front for almost a month.”

“You haven’t heard from the General Staff for that long? Pit, the Kez could be at the city gates by tomorrow! Damn it, I…”

“Sir,” Fell said to Ricard. “Have you told him about Taniel?”

Tamas whirled on Ricard, snatching him by the front of the jacket. “What? What about him?”

“There have been… I mean, I’ve heard rumors, but —”

“What kind of rumors?”

“Nothing substantial.”

“Tell me.”

Ricard studied his hands before saying quietly, “That Taniel was captured by Kresimir and hung in the Kez camp. But,” he said more loudly, “they’re just rumors.”

Tamas could hear his heart thundering in his ears. The Kez had taken his boy? They had hung him like a piece of meat, some macabre trophy? Fear coursed through him, followed by the fire of white-hot fury. He found himself sprinting from Ricard’s office, shoving his way through the crowd out into the building’s main hall.

Olem and Vlora caught up with him in the street.

“Where are we going, sir?” Vlora asked.

Tamas gripped the butt of his pistol. “I’m going to find my boy, and if he’s not alive and well, I’m going to pull Kresimir’s guts out through his ass.”

A
damat was on his way to arrest a general.

He sat in the back of a carriage, the ground bumping away beneath him, and stared out the window at the fields of southern Adro. The fields were golden with fall wheat, the stalks bent by the weight of their fruit and swaying gently in the wind. The peacefulness of it all made him think of his family; both his wife and children at home and the one sold into slavery by the enemy.

This might not go well.

No, Adamat corrected himself. This
could not
go well.

What kind of a madman goes to arrest a general during wartime? The government was in disarray – practically nonexistent – and it was a miracle that the courts were still operating on a local level. All federal cases had been suspended since Manhouch’s execution, and it had taken bribery and cajoling to get Ricard Tumblar, one of the interim-council elders, to sign a warrant for General Ket’s arrest. They’d strong-armed two local judges into signing the same warrant. Adamat hoped it would be enough.

The driver of the carriage gave a terse command and the carriage suddenly slowed to a stop, lurching Adamat forward in his seat. A glance out one window showed him the wheat fields and rolling hills that gradually gave way to the mountains of the Charwood Pile, their peaks far in the distance, while the other window gave him an unobstructed view of the Adsea stretching off to the southeast.

“Why have we stopped?”

One of Adamat’s traveling companions stirred from her slumber. Nila was a woman of about nineteen with curly auburn hair and a face that could charm its way into a king’s court. Adamat was under the impression that she was a laundress. He still wasn’t quite sure why she had come along on this journey, but Privileged Borbador had insisted.

Adamat opened the door and called up to the driver. “What’s going on?”

“The sergeant ordered a stop.”

He ducked his head back inside. Why would Oldrich call for a stop? They were too far north to have run into the Adran army already. They still had over a day to travel before they reached the front.

The carriage lurched ahead again suddenly, only to pull off to one side of the road in order to let traffic continue past them. A stagecoach rumbled on, and then a trio of wagons filled with supplies for the front.

“Something is wrong,” Adamat said.

Nila rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Bo,” she said, poking the man sleeping on her shoulder.

Privileged Borbador, only surviving member of King Manhouch’s royal cabal, gave a start and then went back to snoring loudly.

“Bo!” Nila slapped Bo’s cheek.

“I’m here!” Bo sat upright, bare hands dancing in the air in front of him. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and slowly lowered his hands. “Bloody pit, girl,” he said. “If I had been wearing my gloves, I could have killed both of you.”

“Well, you weren’t,” Nila said. “We’ve stopped.”

Bo ran a hand through his ruddy hair and pulled on a pair of white gloves covered in archaic runes. “Why?”

“Not sure,” Adamat said. “I’ll go check.” He hauled himself out of the carriage, glad to be out of close confines with the Privileged. Bo’s elemental sorcery could kill Adamat, Oldrich, and the entire platoon of Adran soldiers that made up their escort in mere seconds. Adamat had watched Bo snap the neck of Manhouch’s executioner with a flick of his wrist. For all of his charm, Bo was a cold-blooded killer. Adamat glanced back into the carriage once and then trudged up a slight incline toward where Sergeant Oldrich and several of his men conferred beside the road.

“Inspector,” Oldrich said with a nod. “Where is the Privileged?”

“Better start calling him ‘counselor,’” Adamat said.

Oldrich snorted. “All right. Where’s the
lawyer
? We’ve run into something unexpected.”

“Oh?”

“There’s an army just over that rise,” Oldrich said.

Adamat felt his heart leap into his throat. An army? Had the Kez finally broken through? Were they marching on Adopest?

“An Adran army,” Oldrich added.

Adamat’s relief was short-lived. “What are they doing here?” he asked. “They’re supposed to be in Surkov’s Alley still. Have they been pushed back this far?”

“What’s going on?” Bo arrived, stretching his arms behind his back. Adamat was reminded again just how young Bo was – not far into his twenties, at a guess. Certainly not yet thirty. Despite his youth, the Privileged had worry lines on his brow and an old man’s eyes.

Adamat looked pointedly at Bo’s gloves. “You’re supposed to be a lawyer,” Adamat said.

“I don’t like going without my gloves,” Bo said, cracking his knuckles. “Besides, no one will see. The army is still a ways off.”

“That’s not quite true,” Oldrich said, jerking his head toward the rise in the road.

Nila had caught up to them. “With me,” Bo said to her. They headed up to look at the army over the rise.

Oldrich watched them go. “I don’t trust them,” he said when they were out of earshot.

“We have to,” Adamat said.

“Why? Field Marshal Tamas has always got on without Privileged to hold his hand.”

“Tamas is a powder mage,” Adamat said. “Neither you nor I have that benefit. And Bo is our backup. If this doesn’t work – if General Ket won’t come along quietly to face the law in Adopest – then we’ll need Bo to get us out of whatever mess we make.”

Oldrich rubbed his temples with both hands. “Pit. I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

“You want justice, don’t you? You want us to win this war?”

“Yes.”

“Then we need to arrest General Ket.”

Bo and Nila returned. Nila frowned to herself, while Bo seemed thoughtful.

“What do you think is going on over there?” Bo asked Oldrich. “That camp should be dozens of miles to our south.”

“Could be anything,” Oldrich said. “Could be the wounded from the front. Could be reinforcements. Could be that our boys were routed and they’re retreating.”

Bo scratched his chin. He had removed his Privileged gloves. “It’s afternoon. If our boys were routed, then they’d be marching toward Adopest right now. I don’t know what it is, but something is wrong. There’s no more than six brigades in that camp. Too many for reinforcements, too few to be the whole army.”

“We should find out what’s going on,” Adamat said.

“How?” Bo demanded. “We will only know what’s happening by riding into that camp. Which we have to do, by the way. If I want to save Taniel – pit, if he’s even still alive – and if you want my help saving your son, then we’re heading down there.”

Bo strode off toward the waiting carriage.

Nila remained, looking between Oldrich and Adamat.

“If this thing goes bad,” Oldrich said to Nila, “will he back us up?”

Nila turned to watch Bo. “I think so.”

“You ‘think’?”

Nila shrugged. “He might also burn his way through a few companies of soldiers and leave us in the wreckage.”

Oldrich asked, “What did you say you do?”

“I’m Bo’s – the
counselor’s
– secretary,” Nila said.

“And before that?”

“I was a laundress.”

“Ah.”

They returned to the carriage and were soon moving again, heading over the hill, where the sight took Adamat’s breath away. The Adran camp spread out across the plain in a sea of white tents. It seemed to move and wriggle, like an anthill viewed from above, thousands of soldiers and camp followers going about their day.

The carriage came to a stop once more a mile later as they reached the camp’s pickets. Adamat heard one of the guards call out to Oldrich.

“Reinforcements?” a woman’s voice asked.

“Eh? No, escorting a lawyer down here on the orders of the interim council.”

“A lawyer? What for?”

“No idea. I’m supposed to bring the lawyer down here and convene a meeting of the General Staff.”

Bo had his head near the window, listening intently to the conversation. He had pulled his Privileged gloves back on, though he held them below the window, and his fingers twitched ever so slightly.

“Well,” the guard said, her voice bored, “that’s going to be harder than you think.”

Oldrich groaned. “What’s happened this time?”

“Uh, well…” The guard cleared her throat, and what she said next was too low for Adamat to hear. Across from him, Nila had a look of concentration on her face.

Oldrich whistled in return. “Thanks for the warning.” A moment later and the carriage rumbled on. Adamat cursed under his breath.

“What’s happening?” he asked Bo. “Did you hear that?”

Instead of answering, Bo looked at Nila. “Did you listen like I showed you?”

“Yes,” Nila said. She ran her hands over her skirt and stared hard out the window. “It seems,” she said to Adamat, “that General Ket has been accused of being a traitor. She has taken three brigades with her and split off from the main army. The army is now in a state of civil war.”

The General Staff command post was a commandeered farmhouse about a mile from the main highway. It sat at the center of the army, some six brigades strong, white soldiers’ tents spiraling outward in an organized but ultimately loose formation of a camp.

Adamat and Bo were left waiting, confined to their carriage, for almost three hours before they were finally led inside. Their guards made it clear that the General Staff were all very busy and that their appointment would take up no more than five minutes of the general’s time.

The farmhouse consisted of just one large room with stone walls, a squat fireplace at one end and two neatly made sleeping pallets in the corner. The table in the center of the room had one leg too short, and there were no chairs to be seen. Several maps lay on the table, their corners weighted by pistols. Adamat glanced over the maps briefly, committing them to his perfect memory, where he could study them later at his leisure.

“Inspector Adamat.”

Adamat recognized General Hilanska from a portrait he’d seen once in the royal gallery. He was not a tall man, and significantly overweight due to complications resulting from the loss of his arm when he was a young soldier. Well into his forties, Hilanska was a celebrated hero who had made his name as an artillery commander in the Gurlish Wars. Rumor had it he was one of Tamas’s most trusted generals.

Adamat nodded to the general and stepped forward to clasp his remaining hand. “This is Counselor Mattias,” he said, introducing Bo. “We’ve come on urgent business from Adopest.”

Bo swept off his hat and gave the general a deep bow, but Hilanska barely graced him with a glance.

“That’s what I’ve been told,” Hilanska said. “You should know that we are still at war. I’ve turned away dozens of messengers from Adro because I simply don’t have time to deal with domestic issues. You’re only here now because I know you were on special assignment from Field Marshal Tamas before he died. I certainly hope you have something important to tell me. Sergeant Oldrich was rather sparse on the details, I’m afraid, so if you could —”

Bo moved forward quickly, cutting Adamat off. “Of course, General,” he said, drawing a sheaf of documents from the case hanging from his shoulder. He flipped through several papers before producing one signed and stamped by Ricard Tumblar and the judges in Adopest. “I’m sorry we couldn’t provide your men with more details, but this is a delicate matter. You’ll see here that we have a warrant for the arrest of General Ket and her sister, Major Doravir.”

Hilanska took the paper from Bo and looked it over for several moments. He handed it back. “Adopest has not been apprised of the situation here?” he asked.

“What situation?” Adamat said.

“I have sent several messengers over the course of the last two weeks. Surely you’ve been informed…”

“We have not, sir,” Adamat said.

“The army has gone to war with itself. General Ket has taken three brigades under her command and split with the main army.”

Though Nila had told Adamat exactly that, he still didn’t have to fake the shock on his face. “How? Why?”

“Ket has accused me of treason,” Hilanska said. “She called me a traitor. Said that I was in league with the enemy, and when the rest of the General Staff stood behind me, she took her men and broke with us.”

Bo stiffened at Hilanska’s words and his hands twitched toward his pockets – to his gloves, no doubt. “And there is no basis for this accusation? No evidence?”

“Of course not!” Hilanska snatched his cane and climbed to his feet. “She based her claim on the report of an infantryman who said he saw me conspiring with enemy messengers.”

“And were you?” Bo asked. Adamat shot him a look, but the damage had been done.

Hilanska snapped back, “Of course not. It was one of her Dredgers, a convict from the Mountainwatch. The worst kind of scum. To think she believed him over me…” He shook his head sadly. “Ket and I have known one another for decades. We’ve never been friends, but we certainly haven’t been enemies. I never thought she would make such a baseless accusation. Unless…” He held his hand out for the arrest warrant and Bo obliged him. His eyes skimmed the page. “Unless she’s trying to cover her tracks.”